A look at the arts scene in San Diego from the curator of the Martha Pace Swift Gallery at NTC Promenade. Wes Discusses current shows and artists, multimedia links, reflections on other shows and artists and musings on all things artistic.

Ellen Dieter Returns to the Swift

The Bay Park Paintings give a beautiful taste of home

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Ellen Dieter has called many places home from France( where her art career started) to Hawaii (where she now spends a lot of time) but for us she's the quintessential San Diego Painter. Ellen has had several Solo Shows with me as curator, starting in the early 2000's, but none has felt more "local" than her latest foray, rendering street scenes from her neighborhood of Bay Park, in the vivid hues of her signature palette. The paintings are a perfect antidote for the recent gray days, with their bold, high contrast blocks of color, and exuberant brushwork.

Many of the paintings, like triptych Erie and Edison (above), are named simply after the street location of the scene. There are nocturnes.....

And broad, sunny avenues

All waiting for Friday Night's opening, which will feature a Gallery Talk by the Artist at 6:30pm. "And does magic pour, out of every door?" Come see for yourself at the Swift.

Ellen Dieter: On the Street Where you Live opens Friday, March 6th from 5-8pm.

About Me

I am a professionally educated Expressive Arts Therapist (MA, CAGS)and curator of the Martha Pace Swift Gallery. I believe that the arts are an essential part of our humanity. Image making in every medium is a necessary and fundmental component of understanding our ongoing encounter with the world and each other. The arts allow us to contact the world through our imagination, without the intervention of words. As such, the more wired, narratized and intellectualized our existence becomes, the more we need the arts to survive and thrive.

About the Gallery

The Martha Pace Swift Gallery is a unique, public-space gallery, presenting professionally curated exhibitions of visual arts, in conjunction with the Expressive Arts Institute. The mission of the gallery is to present art which addresses the following topics:

·Art in the service of personal or community transformation.
·Art as a means for overcoming personal challenges.
·Art as a vehicle of raising social awareness and tolerance.
·Art in the role of raising awareness of the human relationship and responsibility to the natural world.

The gallery is accessible from 8 am to 8 pm, 7 days per week. There is never an admission charge.

The Swift Gallery is made possible by a generous endowment from Gabriella Swift, and the material and administrative support of the NTC Foundation.